Note: THis file contains reviews for Blackarachnia, Thrust and Snarl. Because I got them at different times, I wrote separate reviews. But they're all part of the second wave, so I've bundled the files into one. Dave's Beast Machines Rant: Blackarachnia Ah, gotta love Murphy's Law. On Thursday, someone offered to send me a spare Thrust he'd acquired. I accepted, joking that this meant I'd find loads of Thrusts and no BA's as soon as I went shopping. Well, today (Saturday) I walk into a Wal-Mart...and there's two Thrusts but no Blackarachnias. GAH. Then I go to a K-Mart, and the first thing I see is a Thrust. Fortunately, a little digging rewarded me with the only BA they had in stock. CAPSULE: Blackarachnia: Pretty good spider mode that makes very good use of translucents and has a somewhat dodgy gimmick. Decent transformation, pretty good robot mode. Easily the best Maximal to date, although that does verge on damning with faint praise. Recommended. $9.99 at K-Mart. RANT: A note for those who haven't read my other recent reviews: I've gotten tired of badly-written techspecs and have taken it upon myself to rewrite them, both for grammar correction and style improvement. I leave the mottos alone, though. MAXIMAL: Blackarachnia Altmode: Black Widow Spider Function: Saboteur Motto: "It is a double pleasure to deceive the deceiver." (Translation: she loves sticking it to Megatron.) Despite her Predacon past, Blackarachnia detests Megatron and fights alongside the Maximals. A definite "femme fatale," she disdaines social pleasantries, although she can't always hide her feelings for certain Cybertronians. Her history of treachery and double-dealing makes her fellow Maximals distrustful of her, despite her hatred of Megatron. Her energon webbing serves a double purpose...not only does it bind foes and deflect energy pulses, it also slowly destroys any metal it touches, helping erode Megatron's "flawless" Cybertron. The front pair of legs in her spider mode are stingers that can disrupt or overload any electronic system. In robot mode, she can ground these stinger legs and send electrical pulses through Cybertron's metallic ground to disrupt enemies. In either mode she has six eyes that constantly scan for enemies and acquire targets. STR 5.5 INT 9.3 SPD 7.2 END 6.8 RNK 5 COUR 7.6 FRP 6.1 SKL 8.5 Avg 7.0 Y'know, is it just me, or does whoever likes to put fractional techspec numbers on these toys always use an integer Rank? And it's almost always 5? Sheesh. Beast Mode: This spider walks tall. The body is only 4" (10cm) long, but in a stable standing pose the bottom of the body is 3" (8cm) off the ground. Basicially, she can walk over most beast and vehicle modes pretty easily. BA's colors are mainly a very nice metallic purple and gold, with the head portion of the body being a transparent gold/yellow. The abdomen has clear, yellow and red transparent plastic in various places, when under a strong light shines like a stained glass window...a VERY nifty effect. The hourglass mark is on the underside of the abdomen, which is where it's supposed to be (I think this is the first time they've gotten that detail right). The abdomen isn't very firmly held together, though, and BA's robot torso and head flop out pretty easily. At first glance, it looks like BA has only six legs. But the front pair is simply very short. Too short to reach the ground in any reasonable pose, in fact. This seems to have been done so that these legs don't get in the way in robot mode. BA's gimmick in this mode involves her forelegs and mouthparts. By pulling the forelegs away from each other, the mouthparts (pedipalps and chelicarae) move as well. Oddly, the two sides are independent of each other, maybe so that you can have her sneer? In any case, it's hard to work this gimmick the way it's intended without knocking everything askew. UF: BA is mistransformed in the package. To get the rear legs in proper position, you need to reverse the first panel of the instructions and pop their joint out and forward. Also, BA is kinda crammed into the bubble, her soft rear legs come out a bit warped thanks to this mistransformation shoving them back. Transformation: Pretty simple. Snap legs together, move abdomen back to become bustle, align limbs. Aside from making sure she's in the correct spider mode first, there's no undocumented features in the transformation. Robot Mode: 6.5" (17cm) tall with really long legs, a wasp waist and short torso, she's definitely a Bad Girl. She also has a big hinder, so you can all go ahead and make the obligatory jokes about Jennifer Lopez playing BA in a live action version now. Her long feet, clocking in at 2.5" (6cm), help counterbalance this bustle. If you want to go for a show-like mode, the toes can be pointed so that her total height rises to 7.5" (19cm), almost as tall as Cheetor, but considerably less able to stand on her own unless you lean her against something. Because the legs are the result of halves being snapped together, there's no mid-thigh rotator joint, just a ball hip, hinge knee and hinge ankle. The waist is on a ball joint, and supposedly can be snapped down to keep it from moving, but snapping it down doesn't seem to have any real effect. The instructions list a pseudo-gimmick, although they imply a spring action that isn't there. Basically, you pop the waist up a bit and then swing her upper body back and forth to scythe her claws around. The arms are very poseable, with ball shoilders and elbows, a swivel at the base of the forearm, and two hinged claws on each hand. The central claw on each hand is warped due to the packaging. Her arms have an odd skeletal appearance due to the holes piercing both upper arm and forearm. Finally, there's her head. It has a limited universal joint, with the fixed long hair being the main thing restricting it. She has a multi-part visor that pulls back to reveal her extra eyes. UF: it can also completely cover her regular eyes. All six eyes can glow under a strong enough light. Overall: Very poseable, very stable in a lot of poses, and pretty big for a Deluxe. A little wobbly in beast mode, and neither mold can hold together under much stress, but it's definitely the best Maximal so far. Dave Van Domelen, gonna be busy early next week, so won't have a Thrust review out until later in the week. Dave's Beast Machines Rant: Thrust Thanks to Anthony Oster for sending this to me. Of course, the day after he put it in the mail, I found several in stores, and then I left for a few days the day it arrived in the mail. Ah, Murphy's Law.... CAPSULE: Thrust: Decent futuristic cycle mode, pretty good transformation and robot mode, a nice profusion of alternate modes possible. Between recommended and strongly recommended. About $10 most places. RANT: Note: this is not the exact techspecs note, I've edited it for grammar and style (although not to bring the toy more in line with the show). The motto and stats have been left alone. VEHICON: Thrust Altmode: Motorcycle Function: Vehicon General Motto: "There are no rules on the road - only the victors and the scrap metal." By far the most agile of the land-based Vehicons, Thrust is a lethal adversary for any Maximal. His extreme speed, superb handling and shrewd maneuvering make him almost unhittable in combat. Affects a subdued and mysterious "rebel without a cause" personality, and is the only general not intimidated by Megatron. Despite this, he appears quite loyal, and always seems to know the right thing to say to keep Megatron assured of this fact. It is rumored that he hosts the spark of the former Predacon Waspinator, a rumor most discount as ludicrous based on his personality. Thrust is outfitted with an enormous amount of firepower for his size. His front wheel in vehicle mode doubles as a cyclotron to generate massive energy bursts, although he has to bring the wheel off the ground to fire. Thrust's front cowling contains a turreted laser pulsar as well. In robot mode, one arm functions as a rapid-fire energy pulse weapon, the other has a grappling hook. Despite his claims of loyalty to Megatron, he cares for nothing but himself. Philosophy and "higher causes" do not interest him. When he thinks no one can hear him, though, he will sometimes mutter, "I think, therefore I disagree." STR 8.5 INT 10 SPD 8.9 END 8.5 RNK 9 COUR 9 FRP 9 SKL 9.2 Avg 9.01 Two notes about his card. One, he's quite mistransformed in his picture, his whole torso and head needs to be pushed up, and the cowling behind his head split apart. Two, there's a cut and paste error in his instructions, in the last panel it says "Reverse the order of the instructions to convert back into spider." Oh, and two and a half, his photo is also mirror-flopped on the techspec card. For the rest of the review, when I lead off a bit with "UF:" that means that this is something I consider to be an undocumented feature. In other words, something the designers intended for the toy, but which didn't get mentioned in the instructions and isn't self-evident. Cycle Mode: 7.5" (19cm) long not counting the missile plugged into one of the exhaust pipes, Thrust is a low-to-the-ground motorcycle. Struts are black or bluish dark grey, while the body shell is striped yellow and maroon. Wheel hubs and part of hte exhaust pipes are chrome silver, and there's a few transparent green bits, including the faction symbol. Two metal bars support his front fender. The main gimmick of this mode is that when you roll the toy forwards, the turret/head snaps to its left repeatedly as a cog drives it. However, this makes it hard to roll the toy, and you can pull the front wheel down a little bit to disable it. The turret/head is only pegged on, and can be easily removed (you can have it look 90 degrees to one side by putting it back on at that angle). Thrust's robot head looks like a driver's head sitting behind the windshield of the toy. Transformation: Not too complicated, although there's a few things you can miss without instructions (and the guy who transformed the toy for the photo obviously didn't have instructions). UF: The fender is movable, sort of, and the pictures in the instructions suggest that it should be folded back. However, this is a pretty unstable position, and it doesn't really look any better. By omitting step 7, you get a reasonable facsimile of the show mode with a unicycle wheel rather than feet. Other possible modes will be discussed later in the review. Robot Mode: 6.5" (16.5cm) tall and kinda wobbly because of the looseness of his ankles. His feet look pretty silly (tire halves with yellow claw-toes sticking out) in addition to being low on stability. I do like his knee jointing, however, with the sliding support bar in the back. His hips are simple ball joints, but kinda restricted by other body parts. The shoulders are ball joints out on spars that stick out to compensate for the fact that his shoulders can't really be put back in a decent position once the bit behind his head is in place. The elbows are ball joints, but his arms are able to straighten (unlike Cheetor TMII's). Each hand is a three-pronged claw, and the prongs can either be closed or flat open. The right arm has a lever you slide forwards to extend the claw a little under an inch, and it automatically opens slightly. I think a magnet in his "palm" would have been a nice touch here, but ah well. The left arm fires a transparent green missile representing an energy blast. The head is on a longish neck combining a ball joint and a hinge, but most of its motion is obscured and hindered by the windshield. Removing the windshield gives him more motion in the head. UF: His mouth opens with a large jaw. I find his head looks a lot better if you open the jaw all the way and hide it behind the windshield, as the mouth doesn't really add to his looks. Oh, and his head tends to pop off easily. Got that Waspinator karma going. Three-Wheeler Mode: While the show-mode is not listed in the instructions, an alternate trike mode is. Basically, leave the legs together and fold down the rear wheel halves so each forms its own wheel. Very stable, rolls nicely. Alternate Modes: Okay, in a day of playing around with Thrust, I've found several new pseudo-modes for him, putting him with Scavenger in terms of flexibility. Here's a few of the possible modes: Four-wheeler robot - Just split the front wheel from the official three-wheeler mode. Flight mode robot - The insides of the rear wheel halves are obviously intended to be hoverfans of some sort. Raise the struts until they form a straight line perpendicular to the body, then point the rear wheel halves straight down. Trike and Four-Wheeler vehicle modes: The front wheels can easily be popped apart. The rear wheels require a little fiddling with the exhaust pipes (pulling them out on their shoulder joints helps) to make room, but you can get a four-wheeled roadster mode or either kind or trike (one wheel in front, or one wheel in back) this way. Hotrodder mode: A little more involved than the roadster. Pull the rear wheel halves out to the sides to that their struts are in a straight line or close to it (this requires moving the shoulder bits up). Point the exhaust pipes up at a 45 degree angle at the elbows. Hotrod trikes work too. This mode has the distinct advantage of keeping the gimmick cog off the surface without having a big separation between fender and front wheel if you do it in trike style. Four-legger "gerwalk" mode: From cycle mode, pull down the exhaust pipes as rear legs and splay out the claws. Separate the front wheel and bend down the robot mode legs. Surreal two-legger "gerwalk" mode: This is really hard to balance, but you can actually have the cycle mode walk on just its robot hands, like some kind of Speed Racer variant. Monster Mode: Start with the two-legger gerwalk. Then separate the front wheel and pull out the toes only 90 degree each to make claws out of the wheel halves. Quite funky. Overall: Certainly has some problems, including the weak ankles and bits popping off easily. But the flexibility of transformations for this toy more than makes up for it. Dave Van Domelen, caught up for however many days it takes the next batch of toys to start hitting stores.... Dave's Beast Machines Rant: Snarl Almost missed this one, it'd been dropped off the peg and was sitting on the stack of Tankors and Cheetors. CAPSULE Snarl: Very slick-looking beast mode, interesting variant on the "stand up and pull out the head" transformation, good robot mode, interesting gimmicks. They're finally making good Maximals. Strongly recommended. $9.99 at Family Toy Warehouse RANT MAXIMAL: Snarl Altmode: Lion Function: Strategic Specialist Motto: "They won't even see it coming!" As a strategic genius, Snarl is a critical part of the Maximal command structure. He has the uncanny ability to sense his opponent's weaknesses and exploit them to maximum...and Maximal...advantage. He considers most Vehicons to be a poor test of his abilities, however, and is constantly looking for a way to directly confront Megatron in a winner-take-all battle. Snarl's penchant for ambushes rarely leaves his enemies the option of surrender. The first clue they have to his presence is his sword cutting through their ranks, or his sonic roar bringing down the house. STR 8.2 INT 9.2 SPD 9 END 8.7 RNK 7.2 COUR 9.7 FRP 7.6 SKL 8.9 Avg 8.6 I edited his techspec note for coherence and grammar, and added a line about his attacks. Note, the picture on his techspec (not to mention pretty much all pictures of him available online) has him mistransformed. His feet point the other way in robot mode. Beast Mode: Mainly gold and sparkly translucent blue, with bluish silver and orange parts, his coloration looks surprisingly good. 6" (15cm) long from snout to tail tip, 4" high at the top of his mane. He's packaged with his spark visible, but it normally hides behind a slide-down panel that's rather cleverly designed. His robot hands are visible under the paw-cover plates, but other than that he's quite free of robot mode kibble. Snarl's pretty poseable in this mode. All four hips are limited ball joints. His front knees bend (although see robot mode notes), the paws swivel, and his rear knees have some motion to them. His tail is even mounted on a restricted ball joint that makes it look more robotic, and his waist turns and has some flexing in it. While his mane is pretty much locked in place, his head can turn back and forth inside it on a three-position ratchet. When in the head is in the side positions, the jaws are open. Sort of like the gimmick on Cheetor's head, but a little better-executed. Interestingly, it looks like his beast head was designed for glowing eyes, but the eyes were painted over in green and the blue "light pipe" top is covered by the mane. Hmm. Transformation: Well, at the root this is another "stand it up and mess with the head" sort of thing. But revealing his hands is pretty clever, and there's some neat tricks with getting his mane out of the way. Getting the mane to snap onto the robot head, however, takes a bit of effort. Here's a tip: the joint between the mane and the body should be straight in order to make the tab fit into the slot. If it's bent, the mane won't be in the right position to connect. Robot Mode: Just about 6" (15cm) tall, this is a very nice-looking robot mode, with design elements reminiscent of Robocop. If you don't transform the hips, it's almost exactly 6" tall, and doesn't look all that bad either. The head has no mobility when the mane is locked on, but he's otherwise loaded with articulation. All the points mentioned for the lion mode, plus his wrists bend and his thumbs move. And then there's the gimmicks. Both arms have gimmicks, as does the head. And unlike Icebird, Snarl's head gimmick WORKS. By pressing down on the top of his robot head, you make his jaw move. Appropriate action feature for a talky strategist, eh? Snarl's left arm shoots out by a centimeter when you press a button on his left shoulder. Okay, not terribly impressive (especially if the elbow is bent), but enough for a power punch. By moving a wheel on his right shoulder, you can make his right arm bend at the elbow and then snap back, for a sword-slashing motion. You can also pose the arm by holding the wheel still and ratcheting the elbow joint. Snarl's tail becomes his sword, as seems to be the case for just about every Transformer with a long tail these days. It has a hole that fits to a peg on the right hand, but it's too thick for the hand to really grip using the thumb as well. To get the thumb to wrap around the sword, the hand has to be bent back a ways, so the sword ends up being held at a strange angle. Overall: While the sword is a bit of a disappointment, this is a Maximal I can wholeheartedly recommend, and that's a nice change of pace (not that Blackarachnia's bad, but Snarl's better. Dave Van Domelen, has Snarl in a nifty action pose dodging to one side while getting ready to hack someone to bits....